Fourteen years ago, a puppy was born in a house in North Carolina. He was part of a litter of Cardigan Welsh Corgi puppies. If all you know are “Corgis,” you might not know there are two breeds and one has a tail. But if you ask me about it, I would tell you the Cardigans are the Corgis with the tail, they’re slightly larger and stouter than their tailless Pembroke fellows, and they’re just as delightful a breed to bring into your home.
Today I’m wrestling with the grief of the end of an era. Two weeks ago, I took that dog, the one from North Carolina, to an emergency veterinarian office. And when I walked back out, he didn’t come home with me.
Grief comes in so many forms, and I think it’s especially true when we’re grieving the animals that become part of our families. It can be the immediate grief of a goodbye and the final moments when we pet our beloved friends before their eyes close. It can also be the grief of a space no longer occupied by that friend.
I’d like to take a little time to tell you about what grief looks like for me and why I’m calling it the end of an era.
That little Corgi pup that snuggled with me in the backseat of a car wasn’t just any dog. He was a bribe straight from my parents. You see, I’d been living and working in China for a year before that dog was born. I thought I might stay longer and pursue teaching as a career there. My parents decided to offer me a dog if I came back home, and they chose not just any dog, but the breed I adored more than all others.
It couldn’t have been a more perfect bribe.
I named that puppy Dobby the House Corgi, and he slept in my bedroom. I took him to training classes, took him outside at all hours of the night to potty train him, and I fell head over heels in love with the little puppy with the big ears, floppy paws, and lazy personality.
When I sat with him in that vet’s office two weeks ago and said goodbye, I took time to rub his soft ears again, to handle those paws I loved so much, and to tell him what a good dog he’d been. Now that my house is bereft of the click-clack of paws on hardwood and the sounds Dobby made, it’s become quieter. My kids offset the quiet, of course, but there’s a certain lack of sounds. There’s no barking when the mail runs, there’s no herding dog following me as I move around the kitchen, no tongue lapping up every crumb the kids drop on the floor at meals.
I took down the sign hanging above his food bowl that read “Home is where your dog is,” and that was sad. I look at the corner where his bed sat and wish it was still there. I miss the herding dog and his penchant for chasing my children around the house when they were running. I miss the way he nipped at heels every time we picked one of the kids up. We would joke that Dobby firmly believed feet were meant to stay on the floor.
But the thing about this grief that feels magnified is how it signifies the end of an era.
Dobby was the first family I chose for myself, and saying goodbye to him was painful because I had to finally put to rest that first chosen family member. I got Dobby before I started dating my husband. And when I got together with my husband, Dobby was the non-negotiable extra member coming into this life we began.
Dobby was there when we brought home our first child and then our second. And he was in the house when my third baby came rocketing into the world. Through all the changes and transitions, he was a constant presence and often a comfort when I went through thorny patches and painful experiences.
Saying goodbye to Dobby meant acknowledging that my chosen family will shift and change over time, and sometimes those changes mean losses. Right now grief looks like seeing the space he took up in our home and in our lives and feeling the void.
